Ukraine desperately needs to replenish its
depleted forces in the face of relentless Russian attacks.
So it has lowered the draft age from 27 to 25.
That means that more young people will have to
leave their jobs to join the army.
And face an almost certain future of violence and
tragedy.
‘Waiting for My Time to Come’: Ukraine’s New
Draft Law Unsettles the Young
Photographs
by David GuttenfelderBy Yurii Shyvala and Thomas Gibbons-Neff
David
Guttenfelder and Yurii Shyvala traveled across Ukraine to talk to young people
about the country’s conscription law.
April 11,
2024, 12:01 a.m. ET
President
Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine probably changed the fates of thousands of
Ukrainian men when he signed a law lowering the draft age to 25 from 27 this
month, more than two years after Russia began its full-scale invasion.
Ukrainian
forces are struggling to hold back the far larger Russian Army, and desperately
need their ranks replenished. Now many of the young men who remain in Ukraine —
thousands of others have illegally fled the country — worry about their future.
Reporters
from The New York Times spoke to Ukrainian men who could be affected by the
change.
‘I am
worried, even a little scared’
Yegor
Khomchenko, the owner of a communal bakery in eastern Ukraine who turns 25 next
month, said he had many friends who had gone to war.
But he said
that his wife, Amelia, had told him that she would “do everything possible to
prevent me from being taken away” if he were to be drafted.
“I am
worried, even a little scared,” Mr. Khomchenko said. “But everything will be as
God intended.”
Mr.
Khomchenko lives in Druzhkivka, an industrial town in the Donetsk region of
eastern Ukraine. Russia has shelled the town with missiles and artillery, but
life goes on, even though on most nights you can still hear the rumble of
fighting on the front line nearby. At the beginning of the war, his wife, then
pregnant, traveled to the central Ukraine city of Dnipro. She returned home
after giving birth to their son.
“She feels
quite calm here because our family is together. We can’t imagine living
separately, and don’t know how people separated by war for months and years can
cope with this ordeal,” he said. “Of course, when there is shelling in
Druzhkivka, Amelia is scared, but we are strong together,” he added.
‘I was terrified at the thought of going to war’
Nestor
Babskyi, 23, a physical therapist at a rehabilitation center in western
Ukraine, sees several Ukrainian soldiers a day who have been wounded and maimed
by the war. He said he felt guilt about not having served himself and a sense
of dread for what lay ahead.
“At first,”
Mr. Babskyi said, “I was terrified at the thought of going to war, but now I am
calm about it.”
The wounded
soldiers “have played their role and returned to live their lives, so I’m
waiting for my time to come.” He added: “I realize that I will definitely be
more useful there than here. This thought calms me down.”
‘Young people are the future'
Oleksandr
Manchenko, 26, a journalist from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, who
has covered the war, noted the tough calculation that President Zelensky had
probably faced in lowering the draft age.
“Young
people are the future, no matter how trite it may sound,” Mr. Manchenko said.
“Perhaps he
thought that Ukraine could do without mobilizing young people, but apparently
the military situation does not allow us to have such a luxury,” he said.
Mr.
Manchenko said he respected the bravery of those who enlisted in the early days
of the war. “It is thanks to them that we survived,” he said, adding that he
doubted his own courage and did not want to fight.
“Furthermore,
I want to continue doing what I am doing because I think my work is also
important,” he said. “But I’m not going to run away from mobilization and hide.
So we’ll see how my fate unfolds.”
‘I need to be as professional as possible’
Maksym
Sukhyi, 27, a dental technician in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, had already reached
the minimum conscription age when the new law was signed on April 3. He said he
had been training to go to war since August 2022 but had yet to enlist.
He has been
looking for a unit to join while learning about weapons and tactics at a camp
on the weekends and going to the gym.
Training in
Ukrainian military units is often uneven at best, and those men who are drafted
— rather than the ones who join voluntarily — are often assigned to the
infantry. Those ground troops usually pull the hardest duty: sitting in
trenches under heavy shelling and attacking enemy lines if need be.
Mr. Sukhyi
said he was bracing for such possibilities.
“I need to
be as professional as possible. If I go to war, I also want to be a
professional there,” he said. “Therefore, I prepare for possible mobilization
as much as time and financial resources allow. If I end up at war, I don’t want
to be someone who knows nothing.”
‘My parents are more worried’
Vasyl
Vanzhurak, 24, is a sawmill worker in western Ukraine’s Carpathian Mountains.
He said that he had wanted to enlist but his father went off to fight, leaving
him to take care of his mother and other relatives in the war’s early months.
“Am I
worried? Yes and no,” Mr. Vanzhurak said. “My parents are more worried about me
going to the army than I am.”
He said he
realized that with such a brutal war going on, “they still need people there.”
Denys
Yemets, an electrician at a steel plant in southern Ukraine, turned 25 last
month. He said he was not too worried about the change in the draft age since
he believed he was needed more at the steel plant than in the army. But, if
called up, he would go fight, he said.
“I’ve
already gotten used to the idea that this war, unfortunately, will last a long
time,” he said. “At first, we all hoped that it would be over quickly, but
later it turned out that reality is much harsher.”
Mr. Demets
said that his uncle and stepfather, who had already fought in the war, had
discouraged him from fighting. “They really did not want me to follow in their
footsteps and serve in the army,” he said.
“I am the
only male descendant left in the family, and they are very worried that I won’t
be OK,” he said. “They would definitely want me to stay at the plant and
continue to support my mother, aunt and grandmother.”
Generations
of Ukrainians were upended when Russia invaded. As the war continues with no
end in sight, Ukraine’s youngest are in increasing peril, at risk of being
dragged toward the carnage of ground combat as they defend their homeland.
On the
front lines, their fate will be decided by, as the English World War I poet
Wilfred Owen once wrote, “chance’s strange arithmetic.”
Thomas
Gibbons-Neff is a Ukraine correspondent and a former Marine infantryman. More
about Thomas Gibbons-Neff
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